The present invention relates to a extremely compact three leaf geared hinge that is adapted to handle heavy loads, tightly fold back onto itself for space conservation, offer extensive freedom of pivotal movement in the horizontal plane and provide an extremely smooth operating action with minimal lateral or transverse play.
Precision movement and location of heavy objects is desirable in numerous situations. An example of this is the biaxial movement of a car door through a non conventional path of travel as would be found on an exotic sports car or a customized hot rod. Here, precision of movement while supporting a heavy load is necessary to both enable the smooth opening of the car door and to protect vehicle surfaces from contacting each other unwantedly. Conventional, existing art hinge design is based on one or two pivot axes, and utilize cylindrical knuckles thereby preventing complete compaction. Further, they require a considerable amount of space in which to be housed because of the extensive amount of travel an car door must undergo when opening to clear the fender for upward rotation.
The present invention hinge utilizes a multiple, linearly extendable, leaf configuration that allows limited pivotable movement in the horizontal (XY) plane. It can be compactly retracted by the abutment of all leaves together through the use of a beveled rabbet on the ends of the hinge leaves and the elimination of cylindrical knuckles. This abutment is accomplished by the unique leaf design at the knuckle interface ends of each leaf. The adjacent leaves have pairs of enmeshed alternating fixed and rotating gears located on their sides to eliminate play in the hinge and to offer extremely smooth operation.
A further advantage of having a multi leaf extensible hinge is that movement restriction of any single hinge can shape the opening profile of the entire hinge. This allows the hinge of the present invention to accommodate the torturous path of travel encountered by car door that opens in more than one plane.
Henceforth, a smooth acting, strong, extremely compact, zero play hinge would fulfill a long felt need in many industries where heavy loads must be held and precisely moved. This new invention utilizes and combines known and new technologies in a unique and novel configuration to overcome the aforementioned problems and accomplish this.